This year NORDOX- Nordic Documentary Film Festival in Beijing celebrates its 6th anniversary with a selection of approx. 20 films from all five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Since the founding of NORDOX in 2006, the festival has been a platform for some of the best recent Nordic documentary films in Beijing. The vision of NORDOX is to explore the language of documentary film and screen documentaries that are cutting-edge, artistically ambitious and relevant in this time. The festival also hopes to spread knowledge about Nordic culture in China, as well as create opportunities for cross-cultural dialogue. The selected documentaries outline Nordic perspectives on a diversity of themes including politics, society, environmental issues, art and music.

This year NORDOX will also present a retrospective selection called “The best of NORDOX”, consisting of documentaries that have been audience favorites and highlights in past festival years. Another new feature of this year's program will be “TEMPO in Beijing”, a selection of short films provided by the Tempo Documentary Film Festival, a well-known Swedish film festival and partner of NORDOX for several years.

In 2011 NORDOX cooperates with LENS Magazine to bring to Beijing the Nordic photo exhibition, presenting recent works from Nordic artists. The exhibition will be held at the premises of UCCA. The images and artists selected for the exhibition give a taste of the vitality of contemporary photography as it thrives in the Nordic countries in the hands of young photographers. The themes reach both inwards to explore human emotions as well as outwards to topics such as climate change.

NORDOX 2011 will also go “on the road”, and bring the festival for the first time outside of Beijing to Guangzhou (Times Museum, Nov 19th- December 4th) and Shanghai (Rockbund Art Museum Nov 29th- December 2nd)

A major spotlight of NORDOX 2011 will be on North Korea. Two documentaries, “The Red Chapel” and “Yodok Stories”, will explore the political and social environment of one of the last countries truly closed off from the outsider’s gaze, each film from their unique perspective.

A journalist with no scruples, a spastic, and a comedian travels to North Korea with a mission – to challenge the conditions of the smile in one of the world’s most notorious regimes. The Red Chapel chronicles the amusing and often bizarre encounters between this Danish “theatre troupe” and their North Korean hosts in a one of a kind, East-meets-West-meets-East look at cultural exchange in the modern world’s last anti-globalist bastion.

Today, more than 250.000 men, women and children are locked up in North Koreas concentration camps. Systematic torture, starvation and murder is what faces the inmates. Few survive many years in the camps, but the population is kept stable by a steady influx of new persons considered to be class enemies. A small group of people have managed to flee from the camps to a new life in the prosperous South Korea. Some of them gather and decide to make an extraordinary and controversial musical about their experiences in the Yodok concentration camp. Despite death threats and many obstacles the musical becomes a tour de force for this ensemble of refugees and for them a possibility opens to talk about their experiences and inspire others to protest the existence of the camps.

Andrzej Fidyk / 75 min / 2008 / Norway

The Extraordinary Ordinary Life of José González [Director Q&A on Nov 12th and 16th ]

The film revolves around the life and mind of musician José González. Using congenial methods; video diary, surveillance camera, concert footage, tour documentation and animation, directors Mikel Cee Karlsson and Fredrik Egerstrand give form to something as elusive as the creative process of one of Sweden’s finest – and most secretive – musicians.

Mikel Cee Karlsson and Fredrik Egerstrand / 72 min / 2010 / Sweden

I Am My Own Dolly Parton [Director Q&A on Nov 18th]

Five singers meet at a tribute to Dolly Parton and become friends. All have their dreams which they now decide to try to make come true. The inner trip deals with making choices, with being oneself, with wanting a child, with having a life threatening disease and with finding someone to love. You can make your dreams come true or you can fail. Your goal is not the important thing but the path you take and what happens along the way.

Jessica Nettelbladt / 90min / 2011 / Sweden

PANEL DISCUSSIONS and Q&A SESSIONS

Panel discussions and Q&A events with selected film directors are a vital part of the vision behind NORDOX, and help create a dynamic atmosphere for the festival as a whole. These events are also a chance for the audiences to interact with the artists and gain a “behind the scenes” view into the artistic process and how an initial concept is turned into a full length documentary. This year the directors that confirmed to attend the festival are Fredrik Egerstrand (The Extraordinary Life of Josè Gonzàlez; Sweden) and Jessica Nettelbladt (I am my own Dolly Parton; Sweden).

NORDOX BACKGROUND

NORDOX is an annual meeting point for Nordic documentary films held in Beijing and attracts a high presence of Chinese as well as international audiences in Beijing.

NORDOX is a not-for-profit organization, established with the purpose of spreading knowledge on Nordic culture in China and to create cross-cultural dialogue on society, art and the environment. The festival was established in 2006 as a part of the Dashanzi International Art Festival. Since 2008 NORDOX has been organized together with the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) at the 798 Art District in Beijing.